


Leave No Cat Behind

by nagi_schwarz



Series: The Oppenheimer Effect [14]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: AU, Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-09
Updated: 2016-05-09
Packaged: 2018-06-07 07:19:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6792994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Stargate Multiverse, Rodney McKay/John Sheppard, Rodney goes into panic mode when his cat is sick."</p><p>Rodney isn't the only one who panics.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leave No Cat Behind

“JD, get up, go to bed.” Evan reached out, swatted at JD’s ankle.

JD stirred. He probably hadn’t been sleeping too heavily, given how loud the movie was, so it was safe to make physical contact to wake him. Otherwise the only thing to do was to be out of limbs’ reach and say,  _ Colonel, your watch. _

“Hey. Movie over?”   


“Your utter refusal to partake in the culture of your people is shameful,” Rodney said. “I can’t believe you slept through Star Wars yet again.”

JD rolled his eyes. “This from the guy who’s never listened to, let alone seen, La Traviata.” He went to heave himself up, paused, prodded the cat sprawled across his entire torso. “Oppie, you hafta to move so I can go to bed. You can sleep with me if you want. Heaven knows you won’t want to be sleeping in John’s bed tonight.”

John grinned and grabbed at Rodney’s ass, causing Rodney to yelp. Cam and Evan laughed.

Oppie let out a small, distressed mewl.

Everybody froze.

“Oppie?” JD asked.

Oppie was curled up into a tight ball of misery and wouldn’t move. JD eased himself up, carefully sliding an arm around Oppie so Oppie wouldn’t fall, and picked him up, turned him.

“Buddy, are you all right?”

Oppie made another small, pained sound.

Rodney abandoned John in an instant, knelt down beside the couch and reached out to Oppie. “What’s wrong, Oppenheimer? Where does it hurt?”

Evan held his breath, fully expecting the cat to answer for some stupid reason.

JD said, “Hey, he got cat snot all over my shirt. Can cats get colds?”

“They can’t catch them from humans,” Cam said. JD had had a cold for the past week. Cam transferred himself into his wheelchair and then fished his phone out of his pocket, fired it up. “Google says...cats can get respiratory infections, but cannot get them from humans.”

“Oppie has been sneezing the past few days.” John wound an arm around Rodney’s shoulders. Rodney picked Oppie up and cradled him.

Cam wheeled closer, peering at Oppie. “Does he have a fever?”

“He is very warm - warmer than usual.” Rodney smoothed a nervous hand over Oppie’s fur.

“Sounds like he has a cat cold,” Cam said, checking his phone again. “Google says to keep his nose clean, have plenty of fresh water for him to drink, and plenty of cat food for him.”

“All right. Let’s go into the kitchen and get you some water and food,” Rodney said. 

Evan followed, poking through the cupboards. “Do they have some kind of special tissues for use with cats?”

“Google says to use cotton moistened with warm water.” Cam and JD trailed Evan into the kitchen.

“I’m gonna go change my shirt. I’ll be back with some cotton.” JD ducked around Cam, and Evan poked in the laundry room for the cat bed Oppie never used.

“I didn’t realize cats could get colds,” John said, going to the pantry to find some cans of cat food.

“Do we need to take him to a vet?” Rodney asked anxiously.

Cam refilled Oppie’s water bowl and set it on the floor next to the dishwasher, where Oppie liked to nap sometimes after dinner, soaking up the warmth from the dishwasher while it ran. “Google says only if he refuses to move or eat.”

“He’s not moving,” Rodney said. It was true - Oppie was curled up into a tight ball and refused to be dislodged.

John opened the can of food and went to dump it into the dish, but Cam said, “Heat it up. Might make him more inclined to eat it.”

So John emptied the contents of the can into a ceramic bowl and put the bowl into the microwave.

JD returned with a fresh shirt and a handful of cotton balls, startling Evan and the rest of them out of their intense staring at the microwave as the cooking timer counted down. Evan directed JD to get a little cup of warm water and moisten a cotton ball in it. JD approached Oppie very carefully, he and Rodney working together to maneuver Oppie around so JD could wipe Oppie’s runny nose.

JD, who was pretty much rough and tumble with everyone he came across - even teenage girls, because treating them like they were ‘one of the guys’ was apparently easier than trying to pretend he was near their age and dealing with them on a more age-appropriate level - was startlingly gentle with Oppie. He’d been that way since day one, almost treating Oppie the way a man would treat his own child. Were JD to ever become a father, he’d be a good one; a gentle one, but a firm one.

JD swiped at Oppie’s nose, scratched him behind the ear, and then the microwave pinged. Food done. John popped open the microwave and grabbed the bowl, fished a spoon out of the silverware drawer, and spooned up some of the food, held it out to Oppie.

Oppie didn’t respond.

“Buddy, open up. Eat some food. It’s been hours since you’ve eaten.” John kept his voice low and gentle.

“Buddy?” JD wiped Oppie’s nose again. “C’mon, food time!”

Oppie didn’t respond.

“We need to get him to a vet,” Rodney said.

JD took command immediately. “Evan, find a number for and directions to an emergency vet. John, go fire up the van. Rodney, let Cam carry Oppie - you need to find your pet insurance card.”

Of course Rodney had pet insurance for Oppie.

“What are you going to do?” Rodney asked, settling Oppie on Cam’s lap.

“I’m gonna go get his favorite blanket. Meet me in the garage.” JD dashed away.

Evan fired up his phone, found the number for a twenty-four hour emergency vet. It was all the way across town, but that didn’t matter. The nurse, a pleasant woman named Maria, told them to come on over. Evan handed the phone over to Rodney so Rodney could give her Oppie’s particulars - age, weight, breed - and then the phone was passed to JD so he could recount Oppie’s symptoms over the last few days, and finally they were all in the van, John driving, Rodney sitting beside him holding his hand, Evan and Cam and JD crammed into the back seat, Oppie on Cam’s lap and swaddled in JD’s old USAF t-shirt, which he did tend to enjoy nesting in when he wasn’t using JD or some other human as a bed.

They tumbled out of the van at the vet’s office twenty minutes later. John and Rodney carried Oppie into the office while Evan and JD helped Cam get situated in his chair, and then all five of them were crowded in the reception area, which was warmly-lit and comfortably furnished and empty but for the five of them.

The nurse behind the desk was Maria who they'd spoken to on the phone, a pleasant, round-faced woman wearing pink paw-patterned scrubs.

“I take it you’re here with Oppenheimer the cat?” she asked.

Rodney presented his miserable and shivering bundle. “This is Oppie.”

“Poor guy. You don’t look very happy.” Maria stroked Oppie’s head gently. She pushed a clipboard across the desk. “I filled out as much as I could with what you gave me over the phone, but there are still a few more things I need. In the meantime, let me take Oppie into the back for his preliminary exam.”

Rodney looked at the clipboard and then at Oppie, and his deliberately calm mien fractured around the edges.

“I’ll take him back,” John said. “You fill out the paperwork, and then you come join us, all right?”

Rodney nodded, and there was an awkward shuffle as he transferred Oppie into John’s arms. Evan, JD, and Cam crowded around Rodney while he tried to write. Finally he shoved the clipboard at Evan and said, 

“I can’t do this.”

“Let me read the questions and I’ll write your answers.” Evan kept his tone careful and soothing. He’d faced down giant, murderous, reptilian aliens. He could handle a frantic Rodney. So the exchange of information proceeded, Rodney getting more and more agitated with every question, but finally it was done. Evan turned the clipboard back in to Maria - Dr. Lopez was in with Oppie and John now - and winced when Rodney demanded, rather stridently, to be taken to his cat.

Maria took his tone in stride and showed him back to the examination room. When she returned, sans Rodney, she smiled at the rest of them, who were crowded around the desk.

“So,” she said, “are you all co-parents for the cat?”

“He officially belongs to Rodney,” Evan said, “and John is Rodney’s boyfriend, and we’re John’s roommates, which means Rodney and Oppie are at our place more often than not, so...pretty much.”

“We’re more like overbearing uncles, I think,” Cam said.

“Oppie’s important to all of us. We - all these old guys are vets,” JD said. “Kitty cuddles help with PTSD and all.” He hunched his shoulders, looking a little uncomfortable, and Evan’s chest tightened. All JD had seen, had suffered - he definitely had PTSD himself, or had in the past - and he couldn’t claim any of it.

Maria’s expression softened. “Yeah, we have a lot of personnel from the base who bring their animals in here. Weird hours they have our boys and girls working.”

“You have no idea how weird,” JD said.

“Is he going to be all right?” Cam asked.

“I’m no vet. Looked like the beginning stages of a respiratory infection, though,” Maria said. “You were right to bring him in as soon as his symptoms got bad. Dr. Lopez is great at what she does. Everything will be fine.”

“Thank heavens,” Cam said, and was it Evan’s imagination, or was Maria flirting with him a little? She was smiling at him and peering at him through her eyelashes.

“It was nice of all of you to come with him,” Maria continued.

JD said, “Leave no cat behind. That’s the rule.”

Maria looked him up and down. “You going to be a soldier one day, kid?”

JD swallowed hard. “No. That’s not in my cards.” He took a deep breath, and Evan eased a hand out to catch his wrist, squeeze, but then JD tangled his fingers with Evan’s, holding his hand. Evan’s throat closed. They’d never crossed this line. He’d seen the way JD looked at him, knew JD was interested, but even after that talk with Carter, Evan hadn’t been sure he could take that next step. No matter. JD had taken it.

So Evan would have to meet him halfway.

They stood there, fingers entwined, making small talk with Maria until Rodney and John emerged half an hour later, Rodney cradling Oppie and John carrying a bottle of medicine.

“Sit rep?” Cam asked.

“Five by five. A week of this medicine, keep him fed and well cared-for, and he should be back to his regular self,” John said.

JD smiled, and Evan squeezed his hand again.

“All right.” Cam wheeled back from the desk. “Let’s get Oppie home and get some sleep, before Evan has a chance to draw up a duty roster for who’ll be watching Oppie all week.”

“Are you kidding?” Evan said. “I always wanted a class pet when I was a kid. Now my kids can have a class pet. I know everyone’s class schedule. Duty roster’s all calculated. I just need to write it up.”

“It was a nice thought,” John said to Cam, who heaved a melodramatic sigh.

“Are you insane?” Rodney said. “I’m taking Oppie to the mountain with me every day.” 

John cleared his throat pointedly, and Rodney looked at Cam and JD, and he amended, “Well, my experiments are usually more dangerous than your teenagers. So, Evan, tell me more about this duty roster.”


End file.
